


Just doing what I can (but what can I do, anyway?)

by Scribblurri



Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen, Introspection, Loyalty, Nakamaship, excessive use of metaphors and "it" as a pronoun, i literally have no clue what im doing, my first posted fic!! technically not my first written, oh well enjoy i guess, so this probably has like a billion grammar errors, spoilers up to dressrosa, this is an absolute mess i gave up like halfway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:54:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22828273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scribblurri/pseuds/Scribblurri
Summary: If you asked Usopp where he fit in among this collection of these forces of nature, he might have faltered, some time ago.(or: the sun, and the wonders it finds in the insignificant)
Relationships: Mugiwara Kaizoku | Strawhat Pirates & Usopp
Comments: 23
Kudos: 69





	Just doing what I can (but what can I do, anyway?)

**Author's Note:**

> vaguely inspired by an amalgamation of different fics, oof

Zoro is steel, plain and simple: cold, strong, cutting, and resilient; Usopp is sure of that.

Tempered and enduring, like the sharp steel of his swords, projecting a dream so fierce and ambitious as becoming the greatest swordsman in the world, Zoro is forged to be something _vicious_. The steel's determination, its will, its _resilience_ , they make Usopp tremble even as something like a family member, but beyond it all is the intimidatingly ferocious _loyalty._ He couldn't picture the steel bending or breaking to anyone's will in the least (well, he couldn't at first), and yet that brutality which cut anything in its way bowed to another: another whom it called its captain. It had seemed impossible, illogical- but as Usopp has long since realized, Monkey D. Luffy tramples over the predictable. For he comes to realize that under the sun's sweltering radiance, the steel had realized its rust, bled out its pride, changed its rigid shape, and _adapted_.

The sun showed the steel, _look at just how wide our world really is. There're much wider horizons than this, y'know?_

  
  
  
  
  


Nami, Usopp imagines, is a stormcloud.

Clever and cruel, she awaits chance and strikes like lightning, emcompasses the shimmer of gold rays for herself, and bleeds greed like rain. When the stormcloud had left behind its ravage and fled, Usopp and Zoro had figured, _that was that_ ; they turned their backs. It was only normal. But the naive, loving sun had already claimed it as its own, and refused to leave, then gave chase. _Ridiculous_ , Usopp had thought, until he learned that the cloud caught in the storm had learned cruelty to _survive_. It struck its target then ran and ran, clinging to gold as the only semblance of light in the neverending storm; the only possible salvation. After all, in the thick of the maelstrom with that dreadful tower as the center, it had never known anything else. Yet with nowhere to turn, at last it pleaded to the sun, and soon as the sun was asked, it leveled the tower of dread to the ground, cleared the stormy sky, and basked the land within its light. 

Granting the lone cloud a crown of sunlight, it had said, _Of course I'll help_ , like it was obvious all along.

  
  
  
  


Sanji, Usopp's pretty sure, is the ocean.

Cold at first under a show of indifference, the ocean is so much more warm and kind than Usopp thinks he ever gives it credit for. He knows it from how the ocean secretly preens under attention, the compassion in rolling clear waves covered up by banter like seafoam (Usopp's a liar, after all; he knows better). The ocean had tied itself down with what it considered a debt; it disguised a deep _wishing_ hidden under a pretend complacency, trying to force down and crush the desire for freedom. But it's simply not right that way, as nature decrees: the sea doesn't like to be restrained. And so, the sun beckoned; the ocean slowly pulled forth. Under the ever-expanding light of the sun, the ocean remembers how to _dream_ for its miracle.

The ocean tells the story later: _That's stupid,_ as the sun had told it, _You're not amazing just so you can stay here tied down._ _You're amazing so_ _you can go anywhere and let the world know what you want._

  
  
  
  
  


Chopper, Usopp guesses, could be snow.

Gentle, soft, caring, and so fragile, the snow knows better how to comfort, how to soothe; than to fight. The clear, glowing innocence packs into shapes left by influence, and maybe that's why the trauma left behind was indented so deep. The snow piled up— hung onto, clung to— dreams, represented by a flag showered in sakura, in which the ailing land filled with corruption could be saved with a cure; it was all the snow had left to not collapse in on itself. And so it picked up fiercely into a blizzard to protect what it held dear, and it chose to fight for its dream, even if it had to do so alone. It had learned not to trust. But the sun gave its trust freely, of the lives of itself, its cloud, and its ocean, and demanded trust in return. And the snow finds that because trust was given to it, it learned to give it back, finding that its _trust, dreams_ , and _everything_ were cared for and _loved_.

Such simple, wild words that had convinced it: _Shut up, let's go!_

  
  
  
  
  


Robin, Usopp supposes, could be a great tree.

Aching with curiosity and hunger for mystery upon razed lands, the grand, wise tree stands tall as a survivor of time, a symbol of remembrance for the land long forgotten by everything else except maybe time itself. For trees know so much more than they seem to; they know the history of the land they've embedded and rooted into so deep over years and years past, and immersed in that knowledge, seek to grow stronger, learn more, _discover more._ In the land reduced to ashes, the tree grew weary and loathing; tired of the world that burned precious history to smithereens. Tired of the world that made it keep on living, when it wanted to die. It's when the brilliance of the sun finds the tree in its misery, and shares its adventure and thoughts of wonder, that the tree begins to find that maybe the world still holds good things after all.

To the miserable tree, the sun had declared, _Tell me that you want to live._

  
  
  
  


Franky, Usopp thinks, is like a part of his sum— a gear.

Odd and eccentric, the gear does as it pleases, creating and functioning as it desires. Loud and proud, it had searched for its purpose, or at least something it had wanted to do, ignoring the high tides, rising every year. It's one of those years, when the gear finds it, and another one of those years, when the high tide takes it all away with its own creations. For some while, it drifts at sea alone, drowning in its guilt, lashing out. It forcibly carves out its own space and hides, but finds that, about what it first wanted, it no longer cares. It's when it sees a place, where it can slot in _perfectly_ — when it finds that everyone and everything in the world has forgiven it but itself— that it can't deny what it wants any longer.

_Come aboard my ship,_ the sun had said, and it couldn't say no.

  
  
  


Brook, Usopp thinks, is that which he creates— music.

Lonesome and solitary is the music, when there's no accompaniment. There's a constant ache the music has— a plead for company. For the music had lost its own life, could no longer find enjoyment in something solo— something lifeless. It clings to any semblance of feeling as it sings and plays, maybe the tone, or the notes, or memories of long ago, anything so long as it can continue playing, so it never forgets the life in which it was once human (or else it will want to die). But bold and unafraid of even the harrowed and haunted music, the sun gave a bright laugh— sang a song of its own, albeit not harmoniously (rather overpowering)— and gave the music _life._ And for the first time in fifty years, the music found a fragment of life that it could hold for itself— crying out, _I'm so glad to be alive._

_Sing a song for me!_ the sun demands so brightly, and the music realizes how much it loved and loves life.

  
  
  
  
  


Jinbe, Usopp doesn't know much about, but he knows the praises the sun sings, and takes a guess, maybe: the moon.

Because the moon controls the tides as Jinbe does the water, the sea bends itself to the will of the moon, just as other celestial bodies bend to the will of the sun. It's not a lot that he knows; he doesn't know Jinbe that well, but from the sun's love, he feels that the moon must be amazing.

It's much, much later, when Jinbe is a part of their crew, that he hears a story from the moon: _The sun gave some of its light to the moon, released it from its chains, and gave it a chance to fight back._

  
  
  
  
  


Luffy, Usopp knows, is the sun; there's really just no questioning it.

Down to the bright smile that burns like a raging ball of fire, the gravitational pull that not one of them can escape, the sheer _warmth_ and _brilliance_ that radiates off him in waves, and the strength that promises to level the world to the ground should the world dare hurt anything he calls precious, Usopp can't find a better example. Doesn't believe there is one. Yet despite carrying such brightness, casting its gentle light wherever it goes, the sun finds so much wonder in the insignificant earth and sky. It so selfishly declares anything to be its own, all with a soul-piercing look and a single word, _Mine_ , calling such things his treasures then cherishing them endlessly; it fills Usopp with a strange feeling of wonder:

_What did we do to ever deserve you?_

  
  
  
  
  


If you asked Usopp where he fit in among this collection of these forces of nature, he might have faltered, some time ago.

If you asked him as a child on Gecko Island, in Syrup Village, all he knows is that he's not vibrant and brilliant. Something to do with tricks and traps, maybe, but, well— he's weak. He doesn't like thinking about it.

When he meets Luffy, the embodiment of the sun, he thinks he has an idea of what he wants to become. So he puts together tricks and traps, but really focuses on fire, because, well— he wants to shine that brightly too. He wants the sun to notice him.

When he takes down his fishman opponent at Arlong Park, he thinks he knows: his pride burns like the wick of a candle. (But he's still just a candle, compared to the sun.)

It's in the ever expansive land of sand, when it is told that the sun had been extinguished, and it doesn't believe a word of it. It fights and fights, tricks and traps alongside the snow, and soon enough, the sun rises once more.

It's in the city of water, when the candle cowers, and realizes just how much it fears for its pride. The high tide and the storm threaten the weak flame, and some strange resentment burns within it— the sun doesn't need to worry about getting extinguished.

At that same city, the weak flame goes out: not by the tide, nor by the sun; for the candle burns out and melts down by its own flame— its own pride. But even still, the candle can't bear to look at the sun.

At the chasm, the candle thinks it can't look at the sun, yet at the same time, it just can't look away. So instead, it pretends. It pretends, dons a mask of the sun, and sends a declaration of fire appearing much, _much_ more vibrant, powerful, and prideful than it really is. It's not what the candle thought it would feel like.

At the edge of the city of water, the candle screams a desperate apology, and the sun accepts, and forgives. (The candle doesn't. It doesn't know how to forgive itself. The flame has long since gone out, and hasn't yet returned.) The sun turns a blinding smile on the candle, and the candle, internally, withers. It thinks to itself, _Ah, I'm a coward._

It's at the island of mangrove trees and iridescence, that the "it" doesn't think about it in the least; pushes it all back into the depths of its mind. But then suddenly it loses the sun, and, all alone, loses its sense of self. It doesn't know what it is or what it wants to be anymore.

Later, on an island of carnivorous plants, it contemplates. It takes notice of what it never had before: plants, tricking, trapping, surviving, thriving. It's oddly nostalgic.

Later, over the two years apart the sun asks of them all, it decides it needs to try harder, for the sun that was trying so hard for them all.

It's there, on that island, that it realizes, maybe it was trying to be the wrong thing all along.

It's in the hell masquerading as heaven under colors and toys, that the sun's very existence is threatened, and—

the plant sets down its roots, and stands.

It no longer matters, whether the sun takes notice or not.

It no longer matters, its own pride.

All that matters is that the sun _will_ keep burning, and smiling, and living, and loving. _It has to,_ and the plant, with its roots, will stand its ground, and fight to make sure of it.

And when the sun turns that bright, blinding smile on the plant,

the plant _flourishes_ in the sunlight.

**Author's Note:**

> (anything that the sun asks)


End file.
